GENTLEMAN’S agreement has prompted Kalangadoo farmer and award-winning filmmaker David Smith to take his fracking documentary across the country a year since its official debut.
The “On The Road Again” tour started in Mr Smith’s hometown Tuesday night with a special screening of Pipe Dreams: Fractured Lives at the Kalangadoo Institute Hall before heading to Katherine, Darwin and Brisbane.
The film – which recently won gold at the international Life-Off Documentary Filmmaker Showcase – focuses on the potential impacts of unconventional gas mining both in Australia and internationally.
Mr Smith visited rural areas of America impacted by gas mining in 2015 with four politicians, a veterinarian and a doctor.
He returned to the United States in 2016 to shoot the 70-minute documentary with a journalist and Mount Gambier cinematographer Rob Tremelling.
Mr Smith interviewed leading gas industry and health experts across Queensland and North America and captured the stories of farmers devastated by the gas industry.
“We recorded the impact this filthy industry has had over a 15-year period,” he said.
“To make that happen in 10 months certainly tested our skills and level of determination to say the least as we encountered several ‘brick walls’ on the way.”
Following the Mount Gambier debut, the third-generation sheep and cattle farmer undertook a nationwide tour with the film, including screenings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Mr Smith said his motivation to returning to Queensland was grounded in a promise to the gas-affected communities he filmed for the documentary.
“It all goes back to my initial approach to people to appear in the film,” he said.
“In Queensland, they told me although a lot of people were coming up there and getting stories to help stop fracking in their backyard, no one was helping them.
“It was a gentleman’s agreement with a handshake and I gave them my word that I would come back with the film and help them with their calls.”
Mr Smith said the 70-minute feature had been well-received by attendees, attributing the widespread success to word of mouth transmission.
“People want to get it out and make everyone aware of the potential impacts on their communities,” he said.
“There are issues the industry do not warn people about, in fact, they lie about it.
“Facts like a decrease in human birth weight and most alarming an increase in human birth defects and stillborn babies where pregnant mothers are living within a few kilometres of gas wells.
“Our environment is too fragile for this to continue especially now with the rapid improvement and uptake in renewable energy.
“The film has an important message to share as most of us strive to leave the world a better place for the generations to come while others, driven by greed show little concern.”
Pipe Dreams: Fractured Lives will be screened at the Port MacDonnell Library on March 4 and the Oatmill Cinema on March 13.
